You've heard of Family Tree University’s Summer 2011 Virtual Conference, I'm sure. From the morning of Friday, Aug. 19, to late night Sunday, Aug. 21, registrants can watch 17 video classes and participate in live chats. We’ll also have a digital swag bag for attendees, a message board, an exhibit hall and opportunities to win prizes.

July 14, 1861, the U.S.S. Daylight under Commander Samuel Lockwood, initiated the Federal blockade of Wilmington, NC. It was the last major port to be blockaded in the strategy to close Confederate ports.

The South used small, fast ships to try to slip past the Union Navy, and over the course of the war, five out of six blockade runners were successful in evading the blockade. But because of the runners’ small size, drastically less cargo got into and out of the South.

The whole country experienced food shortages, but the blockade made things more severe in the South. Prices soared and people got creative about stretching foodstuffs. According to Life in Civil War America, some butchers even sold dressed rats. But in case you’re eating this over lunch, these examples from the book of making do are easier to digest:

When salt was unavailable to use as a seasoning, things with a salty flavor could be used, such as a pinch of wood ashes or a wild plant called coltsfoot, and soldiers sometimes used a dash of gunpowder.

And ...

Chicory, acorns, beans, beets, bran, corn, cornmeal, cotton seeds, dandelion root, okra seeds, peanuts, peas, sugarcane seeds and wheat berries were variously parched, dried, browned or roasted and used to make ersatz coffee. Other versions used tubers like carrots or yams, which were cut into small pieces, dried, toasted ad then ground up.

Most researchers agree it’s important to cite sources, but the hows, whens and wheres have caused a bit of a stir. Genealogy blog readers may notice what my mom and dad used to call a “discussion” over the importance of adhering to the finer points of source citation style (which might be intimidating to newbie or casual researchers) versus just getting the source information down.

Another component to the issue (and something else that can make source citation look complicated) is evaluating a source's reliability:

Is the information likely to be correct because the source—say, a birth certificate—was created when the birth, marriage or other event happened? Or is the source less reliable because it’s a transcription of a digitized book written years later by someone who read a newspaper article about the grandson of the person whose neighbor was actually there? Do several less-reliable sources that provide consistent information equal a reliable source? Can you ever really prove when certain events happened in your ancestor’s life? What does it all mean??

Source citation doesn’t have to be scary. The key is to note every bit of information available about the record, website, book, newspaper, person or other source you used, and make sure it doesn't get separated from the information the source provided. Whenever possible, get the original record rather than stopping when you find an index or a transcription.

Use your knowledge as a researcher to decide whether the information in the source makes sense, and how far you can trust that source. If you have any doubts, don’t add the information to your tree, but use it to form a hypothesis you can keep researching.

While working on an article on ethnic heritage and genealogical societies (look for it in the forthcoming November 2011 Family Tree Magazine) I was inspired to figure out what, exactly, Leo is, heritage-wise.

And by “exactly,” I mean “theoretically,” because:

you never know what proportion of genes you ended up with from each ancestor after the DNA-combining process

geopolitical developments and population shifts can mean ancestors' ethnicity is different from the country whence they came (Your ancestor from Russia would actually be German, for example, if he was one of the many “Volga Germans” who settled in Russia’s Volga River valley.)

nonpaternity events, such as adoption and children fathered—unbeknownst to you—by someone other than the person named in records

a lack of documentation or incorrect documentation about an ancestor's origins

all those ancestors yet to be discovered (unless you’ve found ‘em all)

With that caveat, figuring out Leo’s theoretical heritage combo involves first determining Mom’s and Dad’s percentages. Three of my husband's grandparents came from Germany and one from Hungary, so we'll estimate him at 75 percent German and 25 percent Hungarian. I'll go back to my great-grandparents’ origins: I’m half German, a quarter Lebanese (the source for my last name), and one-eighth each English and Irish.

I just divided each of our percentages, added up the common German heritage, and came up with these numbers for Leo (I generated the pie chart online using Kids Zone):

He’s pretty typical as far as American ancestry: In the 2000 census, German was the heritage most often claimed by Americans and by his fellow Cincinnatians. He also shares in the second- and fourth-most-commonly reported ancestries: Irish and English, respectively.

From 9 a.m. Friday, Aug. 19, to 11:59 p.m. Sunday, Aug. 21,
you get a three-day all-access pass to watch 15 pre-recorded video classes and
participate in live chats. We’ll also have a digital swag bag, ongoing message
board discussions, an exhibit hall and opportunities for attendees to win
prizes.

Because the conference is web-based, you can participate
from anywhere there’s a computer with internet access. Join in every day or
anytime during the weekend as your schedule allows.

The CIA has recently declassified WWI-era documents bearing formulas for invisible ink, instructions for exposing concealed writing in German correspondence, and ways to open sealed envelopes undetected.

Subscription genealogy site Archives.com has added 17 million new US vital and military records. Vital records come from Texas, Colorado and South Carolina; and the military records provide information about individuals who served in the Air Force, Army, Marine Corps, Navy and National Guard during the Vietnam War and Gulf War eras. Click here to see more details on the Archives.com additions.

And the grand prize winner is … Patricia Skubis! Her long-lost Danish relative Tage will travel to the United States so they can meet in person for the first time. Patricia also will receive a year-long VIP membership to Family Tree Magazine and a three-year Premium-Plus subscription with MyHeritage.com.

Patricia belongs to a Danish family that immigrated to the United States in 1888. Another branch had headed for Australia in 1873. Skubis made contact 27 years ago with Alison Rogers from the Australian branch, but they were unable to find a connection. Here’s Patricia’s account of how it finally happened (look for more details in an upcoming issue of Family Tree Magazine):

In March of 2011, a family in Denmark researching the Thygesen name posted information on MyHeritage and I received a Smart Match notice. I wasn’t sure we had a match. The parents’ names were the same but the children did not match. So I asked the submitter for more information. With the additional information I thought we did indeed have a match.

I went online to the Danish Church Records [on the Danish archives’ website] and found Tyge Jørgensen’s children between Neils Madsen Thygesen, born in 1794, and my great-great-grandfather Martin, born in 1805. What a great surprise I received when I found that the next son after Neils was Peder Andersen Thygesen, the great-great-grandfather of Alison Rogers.

Tage and I are fourth cousins once removed. Our great-great-grandfathers, along with Alison’s, were brothers.

Linda Mehlinger, whose mystery started with her Louisiana-born great-grandmother’s photo of a lady and five schoolgirls in a rickshaw being pulled by a Zulu warrior. Through research including searching the 1910 census on Ancestry.com and contacting other genealogists via a mailing list, she discovered a cousin in South Africa who had pictures of the same people.

Pam Ingermanson, whose Norwegian ancestors settled in Idaho. After hours upon hours of research, she connected with a cousin who descended from a brother who ended up in Ohio. The branches of the family had lost touch over the years.

You can read the winners’ full stories, as well as those of other entrants, in their comments on the MyHeritage.com Blog.

Thank you to everyone who entered this contest. Both our team at Family Tree Magazine and our contest partners MyHeritage.com were touched by your stories of reconnecting with family, and we're impressed by your diligent research. You’re truly an inspiration to your fellow family historians!

Mocavo.com has announced it’ll give away an iPad 2 on July 15 to someone who’s uploaded a tree. In response to a comment on the Mocavo.com Facebook page, webmasters also said they’re working on a non-Facebook upload method, and hope to have it in place before the end of the entry period.